Study on interference effect against MAC layer protocol in underwater acoustic network

With the development of underwater acoustic communication and networking, the past forty years have witnessed rapid progress in the application of underwater acoustic networks (UANs). As the necessary component of large-area underwater monitoring and surveillance systems, UANs may confront malicious attacks. Within UANs, MAC layer protocols play an important role in their formation and maintenance. For the sake of the security of UAN itself, it is important to understand the mechanisms of attack against the protocols. One of the main methods is jamming, whose effects are studied in this paper via simulation and experiments. Conflict making, NAV interference and modification of the back-off window interference methods are adapted to gain insight into the approaches of attack, with results showing that the NAV interference method has the better interference effect.